Temporary Insanity...

The insanity of parenthood is real, I could easily be a case study.
I am not just talking about how I go crazy sometimes with life or how sometimes the household is crazy, I mean those moments when you stop for a second and think "did I just do that?" or "that just happened" or better yet when you don't even know what you did until someone else notices.

Allow an example, long long ago(2 years), before Jaycee's arrival, I think back on some of the phone conversations Jess and I had. We talked about the day, the news, and other goings on. Just the other day when Jess called to check in at her lunch, we spent about 4 minutes on the phone talking about Jayden's poop of the day. Jess wanted all the nasty details and I was giving them without batting an eye. Our conversation was only cut short by the screeching of the cat whom Jaycee was sitting on top of giving him a "hug".

How about the time I answered the phone and it was one I actually had to take and Jaycee thought that'd be the perfect time to throw her toy across the room and start screaming about it only to cause Jayden to start crying because she was roused from a dead sleep. The insanity comes in when I held the phone with my shoulder made a bottle with my left hand, held Jayden's pacifier in her mouth and pinned Jaycee down between my ankles so she'd stop throwing stuff while I was on the phone.

And don't get me started on the stuff I have done, that I remember, when I was half asleep at some unholy hours. Now I know I am not the only one who has done this kind of stuff, so I am going to propose an exemption for us. Temporary insanity is loosely defined as temporarily not knowing the difference between right and wrong or not being able to process that concept, right? Well, I can think of many times I didn't know which way was up or down let alone right or wrong. So maybe traffic tickets and other annoyances can be defended by the temporary parental insanity approach. If anyone wanted evidence, they could come hang out with me for about 7 minutes...

Validating Affirmations...

Life has been about as busy as it can get around here. Jess is fully immersed in work. As schools head into the sacred standardized testing phase of the year, she has been pretty loaded up with work/stress. I am pulling into my last year of school and I am finding out what a big difference there is between upper and lower division courses. I am in a hurry to get this done, so I am carrying a full load and also added on some classes at the community college. So now that Jess is back to work, I am working nights at my job on the weekdays, then I work Saturday and Sunday, most of the day. So during the week, three days a week, Jess is home all of 10 minutes, then I have to go to work. On the weekends, she is basically on her own since I usually have homework to do when I get home from work.

I don't write this in an attempt to solicit sympathy, I am fortunate to have all of the opportunities that I have been given and the above mentioned is me taking those opportunities. The reason I share this with you has to do with a recent minor event.

Lately, I have found myself driving to work in the dark after having kissed the girls goodbye and brushing shoulders with Jess on my way out and her way in, and I think about how not fun this is. I hate leaving when my family is home, knowing Jess is tired from her day and now she has to do night routines on her own. I wonder why I am stressing at school and why I go to work, the answers are not in the immediate future. Instead, they are a little ways down the road. Obviously, I go to work to pay the bills and I go to school so when I'm done, I can pay the bills with style, but I can't help thinking about today and the sacrifices we make now.

Then just when I think I can't take it any more, a tiny little event happens and sets me straight. Yesterday, I had to do some stuff around the house and it worked out that Jess had an invite to a party. So I helped Jess get everything ready for her trip, dressed Jaycee, put Jayden in her car seat, got bottles packed up, checked the diaper bag for supplies and some other routines. Then I carried Jayden out to the car and put her in, then said bye to everyone and watched them leave down the road. That's when it hit me like a Frisbee to the head. As I loaded my little family into the safest vehicle I could think of, I knew they were well stocked, comfortable, and most importantly, happy. All the "whys" disappeared and I got to work. To end this post, I tried to think of some famous and altruistic quote that would sum up my conclusion. As Dora the fish from Finding Nemo would say: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...